Kuantan wins silver award for environment management

Our little home called Kuantan is steadily growing. Kuantan has recently won the silver award for environment management at the annual Livcom Awards.

The Livcom Awards, otherwise known as "The International Awards for Liveable Communities", named Kuantan as silver award recipients in Category D, including towns with a population between 150,001 - 400,000.

Kuantan fought off 14 other towns and cities in its category to attain this silver award.

This is some recognition for Kuantan, which is steadily growing with buildings and business opportunities such as The Zenith Hotel, the Sultan Ahmad Shah International Convention Centre, Zenith Tower and Putra Square. Clusters of new housing projects are sprouting up around the town too, the project in Bukit Ubi a prime example. Kuantan's rivers are being cleaned up, with the addition of walking paths and children's playgrounds along river fronts, in an effort to beautify and make the areas more liveable.

The Livcom Awards are endorsed by UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)

Hopefully Kuantan can now enjoy numerous benefits from this award, including greater publicity nationally and internationally, with an expected increase in tourist arrivals. It's an exciting time to be in Kuantan!

So what are you waiting for? When are you booking your tickets to Kuantan?!

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Fidelia's Friday - Fancy a snail?!

When we went food shopping last Wednesday, I found one of my favourite foods that can only be found occasionally in this supermarket called Tunas Manja. Even though it wasn't on our list, I  quickly grabbed it and put it in our trolley. 

So, our dinner menu for that night had changed! Instead of cooking some squid, I chose to cook some lovely snails.

I cooked it the way my dad always does. I chopped some onions, garlic and ginger and fried them all in a wok. When the smell of the onion started to fill the air, I quickly put the snails in. I then splashed a good amount of soy sauce and a few spoons of sugar. Next, I added some water. I let it simmer for a good 10 minutes and TADAAAA!!! It was all ready to eat! Yummy!

Here are a couple of photos of the nice looking snails. Enjoy!

If you are wondering how it looks inside, here it is...

Have you ever eaten snails? What is the weirdest food that you have eaten?

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Vistana Hotel - Behind-the-scenes

Today I'm taking you behind-the-scenes at the Vistana Hotel Kuantan.

These are places in a hotel the usual guest never gets to see, but which, accompanied by Hotel Manager Wayne Lee, I had the privilege of exploring.

All of the behind-the-scenes action at Vistana Hotel Kuantan takes place in the basement. Staff offices, canteen, uniform room, laundry room and so on, are all down under the hotel.

Here is the workspace of the Front Office. These people deal with all the email reservations and telephone enquiries

This is the Hotel Manager, Wayne Lee's office. He was kind enough to let Lauren sit in his chair!

Lauren may just be the future Vistana Hotel Manager!

Here is a self-portrait of Nadia Bertrand. She has hung on the walls of Vistana Hotel, numerous paintings she worked on here for 5 months earlier this year. Everywhere you look, Nadia's work can be seen. Her blog is www.nadiabertrand.blogspot.com Have a quick look at her abstract work she has been doing all around Asia.

The staff canteen

Staff uniform room

Bedsheets fall down into the laundry room from the chute

The laundry room was the most interesting place behind-the-scenes for me. The piles of laundry, the night shift workers, the huge washing machines and steam dryer, the professionalism required to work in the laundry room.

Here is the laundry room at 10pm, just as the night shift begins:

Look at those piles of laundry reaching over 2 metres high!

Wayne explained everything to me. This washing machine comes at a price of RM200,000 and has a life of 15 years. It is capable of washing a load of 60kg! Wow! And I thought we sometimes had big laundry jobs!

Here's a look at the chemicals which are fed into the washing machines, different ones for different types of washes. It was all quite amazing to me. The laundry workers really know what they are doing and are prepared for any accident that may occur with these chemicals. Engineers are often in the laundry room to check the chemicals and the washing machines

And here is the steam dryer. Bedsheets are fed into this machine and come out the other side hot and crease-free! 

Amy is the good member of staff who escorted us down to the laundry room at 10pm and took this picture of us. It was really warm and gripping down here and after 10 minutes Lauren was already too hot!

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Vistana Hotel's Gigantic Ice Kacang!

The Vistana Hotel in Kuantan must sell the biggest 'ice kacang' I have ever seen!

Ice kacang is a dessert including beans and jelly topped off with lots of ice shavings. Occasionally it may involve a scoop of ice-cream.

At the Coffee House at Vistana Hotel Kuantan we were absolutely amazed when my wife's order of ice kacang arrived!

How majestic does that look?! With a scoop of ice-cream on top as well! That is a real ice kacang!

Fidelia was sure happy with it!

And so began the task of getting a spoon in and eating the ice kacang without toppling it...

Fidelia removed the ice-cream onto a separate plate and started shaving the ice from the top down.

Fidelia changed to a more conventional spoon which made it easier to devour this monster of an ice kacang...

This is a 'longan', a fruit which is similar to a lychee but smaller. Ice kacangs may contain fruits, beans and jellies.

Fidelia is half-way through her ice kacang now...

The huge tower has disappeared. I wonder how much she can finish?

Fidelia stands behind her almost-finished ice kacang!

If you are in Kuantan and need a dessert, head over to the Vistana Hotel Coffee House and experience for yourself the mighty Vistana ice kacang!

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Vistana Hotel Children's Playground

Located behind Vistana Hotel Kuantan lies a lovely children's playground.

The playground is beside a river which runs behind Vistana Hotel. It's accessible via a suspension bridge, which affords good views of the hotel, the river and the scenery of the surrounding area.

Lauren and I took a walk across the suspension bridge to the playground while we were staying at Vistana Hotel Kuantan.

Back view of the Vistana Hotel Kuantan

Lauren at the suspension bridge

On the bridge

View upstream from the suspension bridge

Vistana Hotel is still visible behind the trees

We arrive at the children's playground

Very impressive slides

Lauren looks down the tube, but didn't want to slide down it!

We spent some time on the see-saw...

So glad I took this picture, I love it!

Lovely view along the river. Kuantan's The Zenith Hotel can be seen in the distance

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